Last Wednesday, about 9.45 p.m., Father Gareth said, “Isn’t it strange how, on the day when you can’t have something, you want it all the more?” It was Ash Wednesday, a day of fast and abstinence, and Father Gareth had taken a sudden and strong notion for a slice of beef, a lamb shank, a chicken leg, or perhaps all three. He was right of course, we are never so hungry as on a fast day, no sooner do we begin to deprive ourselves of something than our longing for it grows stronger. Such is the way of temptation, and Lent had only just begun.

Earlier that day we had big crowds at each of the three Masses in the church as people came forward to be signed with ashes, and also a big number of people who came for ashes throughout the day, who were unable to attend any of the Masses. We also had a very nice service in the City of Glasgow College which was conducted by Brother Antony, as college chaplain, and I provided a bit of music. It was obviously appreciated by the students and staff who came, and I thought that the witness of the students and staff walking around the college for the rest of the day, with their ashes on their foreheads, was quite significant.

My most memorable experience of Lent was back in 1987 when I made a 30-day silent retreat at Manresa House in Dublin, named after the cave where, according to tradition, Saint Ignatius of Loyola shut himself up to pray and do penance from March 1522 to February 1523, and during which he wrote the Spiritual Exercises which formed the basis of my retreat. At the time I was doing a year-long formation course in preparation for working with our students and novices, and the retreat was part of the course.

There were 30 of us on the course from various Religious Orders, 20 women and 10 men, representing 15 different countries and cultures throughout the world. It had been a wonderful experience and the 30-day retreat came towards the end of the course. Because of the nature of the various elements of our programme, we had come to know each other very well, warts and all, and there had developed a great spirit of friendship and support among us. There had, of course, been occasional moments of humour to break the intensity as when, in the middle of our first group dynamic session, during which nobody had spoken, the silence was broken when a Sister from Pakistan, who had a bit of a tickly cough, asked the facilitator, “Do you mind if I take a tablet?”, to which he answered not a word. At the end of the session he left the room, again without speaking, and we all turned to this Sister and asked why she had made such a strange request as, with her broken English, we had, every single one of us, thought she had said, “Do you mind if I take up the carpet?” We laughed till we cried.

But, much as we had come to know each other well throughout the course in all the talking and sharing, I would say that we came to know each other even better in the quiet and the stillness of the 30-day silent retreat. We became very attuned to each other whether it was in the chapel quietly praying, or sitting at table sharing a meal with gentle music playing in the background, or just noticing each other walking in the grounds, or in the park next to the Retreat House, or on the long stretch of beach on the opposite side of the road. We seemed to intimately connect with each other’s moments of joy and sorrow, struggle and pain, without ever saying a word, because no words were needed. And God was palpably present in the silence as we moved towards a joyful celebration of Holy Week and Easter at the end of it all.​This Lent has begun on St. Valentine’s Day, and it will take us through to Easter Sunday, which is April Fools’ Day. St. Paul says, we are fools for Christ, but then he goes on to say, but we are so wise inChrist. So, we can acknowledge a certain foolishness, a touch of madness, that is built in to our believing in, and following of Christ, but we also celebrate its wisdom. Again, as St. Paul says: The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the wisdom and power of God. Happy Lent!

Early this morning I dropped off Father Gareth and Brother Antony to catch a train to Euston Station, from where they will head to the Passionist Retreat of St. Joseph’s at Highgate in North London. St. Joseph’s sits impressively at the top of Highgate Hill and has a magnificent dome. The story goes that during the 2nd World War the Ministry of Defence requested that the dome be covered so that it didn’t become a marker for the enemy, to which the rector replied that when they covered up the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral he would cover up the dome of St. Joseph’s. Neither were ever covered. St. Joseph’s wasn’t bombed but the dome of St. Paul’s did suffer some damage. Very near to the church is Highgate Cemetery where Karl Marx is buried, or, if you prefer, Jeremy Beadle is also buried there.

The reason for Father Gareth and Brother Antony’s trip is to take part in a gathering of young Passionists from our Province, the others being Father Frank (Trias) who is based in Minsteracres Retreat Centre in County Durham; Brother Conor who is based in Crossgar in County Down, Northern Ireland; and Brother Aidan who is based in Highgate itself – so, two Scots; two from Northern Ireland, and one Welshman. Such gatherings are invaluable as young Passionists from our part of the world are few and far between, and it’s good that they meet from time to time to encourage and support each other, and to continue their growth and development in Passionist Religious Life.

These five men are spread throughout a few years of formation, whereas when I entered in 1975 there were six in my class alone, which in itself was small compared to times past. Of the six, two were from Glasgow, two were from Belfast, one was from Nigeria, and, at first, I thought the other might have been from Sweden or Holland or somewhere like that, as he spoke very quickly in a kind of sing-song accent, and I couldn’t understand a word he said, but it turned out he was a lovely guy from County Clare in the West of Ireland. Till the day he left I still couldn’t understand him.

After a year of postulancy at the Graan in Enniskillen, we moved to Mount Argus in Dublin to begin formal studies, and there were 21 of us on the student corridor, a motley collection of religious all-sorts. In the monastery itself, between priests, brothers and students, there were over eighty men. Between the student corridor and the community chapel, where we all gathered for community prayer and Eucharist, there was a passageway referred to as the race-track. This was because on any given morning you would find two or three students who had overslept, racing along with seconds to go for the start of Morning Prayer, trying to escape the steely gaze they would receive from the student director, if prayers had already been intoned before they got there.

Most of us studied at Milltown Park, a Jesuit institute about five miles from Mount Argus. Our mode of transport was bicycles. Many of these bicycles were from a store of abandoned, lost or stolen bicycles in the keep of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police. One of our Passionists in Mount Argus was chaplain to the police and so, once it was deemed that certain bikes were never being reclaimed, we were able to acquire them for the students. By the state of most of these bicycles we could see why they were abandoned or “lost”, and that stealing them was probably deemed by the thieves to be a mistake in the first place. It was quite a sight to see us all heading out of a morning to class.

We would return early in the afternoon for a bit of lunch and then gather in the recreation to relax for a while, before we got down to study in our rooms. Part of our recreation together was the “neglected record slot” whereby someone would dig out an old 78, 45 or 33rpm disc that had been left behind by previous generations of students and play it full blast on the turntable. It would then be awarded roses or raspberries – but mostly raspberries. We had a small snooker table too that we enjoyed, and quite a few excellent footballers who lived for getting out onto the pitch at the back of the monastery, and for playing in the seminary league on a Saturday, which, more often than not, we would win. Needless to say, we had our tensions among us too, but, all in all, it was good to have each other, and I admire our present crop of young Passionists who have to travel at times a lonelier road. So, hopefully, our five young Passionists will have a great few days together and come back the better for it.​Jesus. give the light of your Holy Spirit to those young people who have received the grace of a Passionist vocation. Inspire them to give their lives, keeping the Memory of your Passion alive in their own hearts, and in the hearts of others. Amen.

Apart from Father Gareth, who was in Wales visiting his mum anyway, our Passionist Community in Glasgow are all Scots, and so we four Scots settled down last Thursday week to celebrate Burns’ Night with some lovely haggis, neeps and tatties. Being the only drinker in the community I was also able to enjoy a wee dram of 15-year-old Glenfiddich with it, a generous gift to the community; malt whisky being reputedly the perfect complement for haggis. Of course, if Father Gareth had been there, he would have tried to make a case for Rabbie Burns being Welsh, and would probably have tortured us by reciting the Address to a Haggis in his mock Scots accent, which is truly cringe-worthy.

When I was at primary school at St. Peter’s in Partick, from 1956-63, I won a book of Burns’ poetry at a poetry recital competition. Ironically, it was for reciting a poem that wasn’t by Burns at all. It was a poem called The Sair Finger by Walter Wingate, a schoolteacher and poet from Dalry in Ayrshire, who died 100 years ago this year, about a wean wi’ a skelf in his pinkie – for non-Scots readers that means a child with a splinter in his little finger.​Much later in life, when I was a deacon in Rome, I had an unexpected and unusual request to recite a lot of Burns’ poetry. It was during one of the breaks from university and I was invited by one of my Italian Passionist colleagues to spend a few days with him at the Passionist Retreat near to city of Verona, which was his home community. Now, while Verona has more to connect it with William Shakespeare, with Romeo and Juliet, The Two gentlemen of Verona, and The Taming of the Shrew all being set there, it was Rabbie Burns who had most captivated an old Passionist priest in the community for many years and, when he heard that I was a Scot, he produced his collection of Burns’ poetry, and also a tape recorder, and had me spending hours each day reciting the poems so that he could listen to them being read in a Scots accent. Having lost my accent to a large extent, and sounding more Irish than Scots, I had to really work at it and lay it on thick. He seemed very pleased with the outcome anyway.

I know that the Scots poet Liz Lochhead recently described Burns as the Harvey Weinstien of his day, and I wouldn’t be qualified to comment on that, but I think it is also true to say that Burns influenced some extraordinary people. Abraham Lincoln for example could quote Burns’ poetry by heart and drew on Burns’ passion for social justice and the equality of human beings, often reflected in his works, when campaigning for the emancipation of slavery. Burns is also said to have inspired Martin Luther King in his I have a dream speech. Winston Churchill was another admirer, and when Bob Dylan was asked to name the lyric that had most inspired him he quoted directly from Burns’ My Love is like a red, red rose.

It has been suggested at times that Burns was anti-Catholic, but I think the most informed view is that, certainly in his poems, he was mostly critical of the Kirk, and that he was simply anti-hypocrisy in any religion, and we could all go along with that. I was going to finish with an extract from one of Burns’ poems, or perhaps one of his songs, but I know you’re really all longing to read The Sair Finger – so here it is:

And noo, to make it hale the morn, Put on a wee bit saw, And tie a Bonnie hankie roun't, Noo, there na - rin awa'! Your finger sair ana'? Ye rogue, You're only lettin' on. Weel, weel, then - see noo, there ye are, Row'd up the same as John!

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 21st – 28th JANUARY​Last Friday I decided to attend the closing of the St. Mungo Festival at the City of Glasgow College, where Brother Antony is the Catholic chaplain. Apart from himself, nobody else in the college seemed to know very much about it and, just before 4 p.m., when it was due to begin, there was a snow blizzard blowing outside and the college website was reporting that the college was closed and that all the staff had been sent home. Brother Antony suggested that he would go along and check it out while I continued to work in the office, and he would phone me to let me know what was happening. When he arrived at the college he was told that there was no one inside except the janitor, but he went in anyway, only to find a table set with food and drink, and a few people gathered waiting for the event. He phoned me and suggested that I should come in by the back entrance to the college, the blizzard having by then eased a little. When I got to the back entrance there was a lady coming out who informed me that the college was closed and that there was no one there except the janitor. Of course, I knew better, and I went in to find everything as Brother Antony had reported. Between the weather and the confusion there were very few people there, just a few staff members, a handful of students who, in noble student tradition, seemed to be there for the free food and drink, and then those of us who were genuinely interested in St. Mungo.

As it turned out, I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the college there are three visual interpretations relating to St Mungo, and the closing event was an opportunity to see and find out more about them. The first was a sculpture that some people will remember used to sit at the bottom of Buchanan Street called “The Spirit of St. Kentigern”. It was loved and hated in equal measure at the time, but few people really knew what it was meant to be. It was eventually removed and placed in storage, but was now rescued, restored, installed on an impressive new plinth, and placed at one of the college entrances. The second piece, called St. Mungo’s Cave, reminded me of a labyrinth. It was a wooden construction that represented the skyline St. Mungo would have seen on his journey from his birthplace of Culross in Fife, to what later became Glasgow, the city that he founded on the banks of the Clyde by the Molendinar Burn. The final piece, which we didn’t actually get to see, except as a projected image, was a more traditional statue of St. Mungo being carved in Portland stone, which will eventually find a home in the garden area next to the college, visible from Cathedral Street.

The presentation of these pieces was nicely and simply done, condensed because of the bad weather and the smallness of the group, and was rounded off by one of our St. Mungo’s musicians, Vincent Mellon, playing and singing his own composition, Molendinar Song, which he had also sung at the 12 noon Mass the Sunday before, at the celebration of the Feast of St. Mungo, along with another of his compositions, Let Glasgow Flourish.

In the course of the evening I got talking to a few people including a lovely lady who lectured in the hairdressing department at the college. Once we had solved the problems of the world she told me that I would be a welcome visitor to the hairdressing department at any time. I was delighted with this but when I told it to Brother Antony he just laughed and asked what good would that be to me. He said the same to my new friend who simply said that she could give the top of my head a nice polish. I might just give that a try some day.​I’m sure Vincent, who could tell you every place in this great city where the famous Glasgow Coat of Arms can be found, won’t mind me ending with the chorus of Let Glasgow Flourish:

Let Glasgow flourish by God’s word and the praising of His name;To be a light to all the world, and throughout the world the same.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 14th – 21st JANUARYA couple of weeks ago Father Gareth organised a simple lunch for one of the Passionist Young Team who was returning home to India. She was, of course, looking forward to seeing her family; she showed us some photographs of them, and of her church back home, but she was very sad to be leaving Glasgow, and to be leaving St. Mungo’s and the Passionist Young Team, which had come to mean a lot to her as a community of faith and friendship. A few days later she was at Mass in St. Mungo’s for the last time and as I bid farewell to her again I caught a snippet of a conversation she was having with two ladies of the parish. I couldn’t possibly hazard a guess at these ladies ages, but let’s just say they weren’t members of the Young Team. I understood from what I heard that this girl was going back with these ladies for a post-Mass cup of tea, and that this had been a not uncommon occurrence since who knows when. Sometimes the cup of tea stretched to fish and chips, which had become a favourite meal for our Indian friend, and I imagine not one she would be getting too often back in Kerala.I suppose what struck me most was that there was, in the parish, this simple act of kindness going on quietly in the background, and I wondered just how many more such hidden acts of kindness were going on in the parish that I was totally unaware of. Of course, there is absolutely no reason that I should be aware of them, parish priest or not, but still it delighted me to know that our parish as a family of faith, friendship and compassion, was alive and active, and known only to the God who sees all good things done in secret and blesses them.It reminded me of a time when one of our old Passionists died, and in the aftermath of his funeral a story emerged that no one, except a very few people, knew about. It seems he went out one night to visit a house in the parish (not St. Mungo’s). He rang the doorbell and waited, quite a long time, for it to be answered. It turned out that he had gone to the wrong house and it was an old protestant lady who eventually opened the door. She apologised for taking so long and explained to him that at a fixed time every night she had to put eye drops in and she found it very difficult to do.Afterwards, a local teacher who went for a walk most nights with this priest, wondered why at a certain time he started to excuse himself and leave. It turned out that, ever since that chance meeting, he had been going around to this old lady’s house every night and putting the drops in her eyes. Eventually the lady died, and not long after that the priest died too, and it was only then that the story of this quiet, hidden kindness came out into the open. I still feel very moved every time I tell that story.In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the troubled Blanche famously says “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” There is an echo of this in the mysterious story in the Old Testament, from the Book of Genesis, where Abraham receives three strangers as he camps by the Oak of Mamre. He serves them a meal, and as the conversation progresses he seems to be talking directly to God. This story was later captured in a famous Russian Icon where these visitors are depicted as angels, and as a metaphor for the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. Let’s take to heart this verse from the Letter to the Hebrews which often accompanies this famous icon where it simply says:“Never forget to show kindness to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels, without knowing it”.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 7th – 14th JANUARY​Today (Thursday 11th January) I offered the 12.15 p.m. Mass with two Passionists who have recently celebrated their diamond jubilees of priesthood; Father Justinian McGread CP from St. Mungo’s community here in Glasgow, and Father Ralph Egan CP from our community at Mount Argus in Dublin. They were ordained on 21st December 1957 along with seven others, all of whom have now gone to God. One of them was Father Eustace, well known to all at St. Mungo’s, and much missed. Father Justinian and Father Ralph each had their own celebration in Glasgow and Dublin respectively, but when Fr. Ralph came over for a visit to Glasgow with his sister it provided the opportunity to have a simple celebration with both of them.

I was thinking back to when I first met each of them. Back in 1969 I was a youth leader at my parish of St. Laurence’s in Drumchapel and we took a group of young people down from the parish to the Passionist Retreat House at Coodham in Ayrshire. Father Justinian was one of the Passionists based there at the time. After a little while I was invited by the Passionists on to the organising team for both the Youth Retreats and the Young Adult Retreats. I remember that our planning meetings used to take place over a weekend down at Skelmorlie, in a house on the sea-front that was owned by some Religious Sisters. I would finish work on the Friday evening and then meet up with some other members of the team. We would get the train to Wemyss Bay and a bus along to the house. When we arrived, Father Justinian would always be there to welcome us with a huge pot of Spaghetti Bolognese and some nice crusty bread, and I used to look forward to it immensely. Father Justinian’s spaghetti became legendary, so you can imagine my delight on coming back to Glasgow at the end of 2016, and coming to live in community with Father Justinian for the very first time, to discover that, nearly 50 years on, he was still making his spaghetti, and I now look forward, every Saturday night, to arriving home from the Vigil Mass in St. Mungo’s, and sitting down to my favourite meal.

I first met Father Ralph in1976. I had joined the Passionists in 1975 and spent my postulancy year at the Graan in Enniskillen. Part of my involvement with the retreats at Coodham was around music and, when I arrived at the Graan, I was asked by the rector, Father Ignatius, to set up a music group for one of the Sunday Masses and also to provide music for the Graan prayer group. Also, my postulancy director, Father Bernard, had me travelling around the countryside with him to provide music at various prayer meetings in halls and homes, sometimes in very remote places indeed. Prayer groups were very popular at the time.

In September 1976 I moved to Mount Argus in Dublin to begin philosophy studies. Although the Passionists had been in Mount Argus since 1856, it only in fact became a parish in 1974, and Father Ralph was appointed as the first ever parish priest. Once again, on my arrival, he asked me if I could set up a folk group in the parish for what was then the 1 p.m. Mass on a Sunday. I put a notice in the parish bulletin for interested members, but it wasn’t specific enough as to who was eligible, so come the night of the first rehearsal I had 40 people there, ranging in age from 14-36. It was a bit chaotic, but somehow, we managed, and we played for the first time at the Mass on the 1st Sunday of Advent 1976. The folk group lasted in some shape or form for 40 years and only disbanded in the autumn of 2016. Father Ralph returned for a second spell as parish priest from 1996-2000, when he was also rector, and in January of 2001, we swapped jobs, he taking over as rector and parish priest in Prestonpans, and me taking over as rector and parish priest in Mount Argus, where I remained until coming back to St. Mungo’s in 2016. I have lived in community with Father Ralph a few times over the years and he has always been very pleasant company and a faithful and committed priest.

Loving God, may those to whom Fr Justinian and Fr Ralph have ministered for 60 years, appreciate, affirm, support, and celebrate their gift of service, and pray for them always.

Where our Passionist community lives in Bishopbriggs, there is a wood behind our house. One of the advantages of this wood is that it is home to a rare breed of frogs, which means that nothing can be built on their habitat, which is a pond just beyond our garden fence. This wood is also home to a family of deer. When I first arrived in October 2016, the other members of the community informed me that I would see these deer regularly, especially as my bedroom window overlooked the wood. Fourteen months later I still hadn’t seen a single deer. They were more elusive than God and, unlike God, I had begun to doubt their existence.

Then, just the other week, I was on call on Friday night for the Royal Infirmary. At 2.30 in the morning I was awakened by the sound of the hospital pager which, understandably, emits a very loud bleep. After praising God for calling me at this hour, I phoned the hospital, and was put through to a nurse who told me what the situation was, where I was to go, and who I was to attend to. I quickly got dressed and took the oils and the host from our little oratory in the house and tried to tiptoe down the stairs and out to the car without waking the whole household.My habit on such occasions is to park in the yard at St. Mungo’s and walk over the footbridge to the Royal. I arrived at the hospital within about half an hour of being woken, and made my way to Ward 65 where an old lady, originally from Donegal, was nearing her final breath. A good number of the family were gathered. They were obviously a family of faith and we gathered round the bed to say the prayers, and to give her the Sacrament of Anointing, although, being unconscious, she was unable to receive the Eucharist. After chatting for a while with the family, I then left them to begin to make my way back to Bishopbriggs.

My first task was to find my way out of the hospital – which is not as easy as you might think. Walking through the Royal Infirmary in the wee hours of the morning is a strange experience. Once you leave the wards and enter the corridors the place seems absolutely deserted, and of course the Royal is now so vast. For security reasons the external doors are locked and there are usually only one or two discreet doors to exit onto the street, but of course I couldn’t find them. At one stage I passed a security station where there was a half-drunk cup of tea on a desk and a transistor radio playing quietly, but my shouts of “hello, is anybody there”, met only with silence. I wandered the corridors calling out the same thing until, by sheer chance, I came upon a door where it seemed something was being delivered or removed in a white van, and I was able to escape to freedom.

It was a very frosty night and I drove slowly and carefully. About 4 o’clock in the morning I turned into our estate and, just as I turned off the main avenue, a deer sprang out of one of the gardens and ran on ahead of me. I stopped the car to watch, and soon it was joined by another deer, springing out of another garden. I continued to drive slowly forward and they both followed a path before me until I turned into our car port and they continued on ahead. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.I sat for a moment and smiled. They were lovely to see, and now I fully expect to be driving home after Midnight Mass this Christmas and see at least six of them, this time in the sky, pulling a sleigh, with a big man sitting in a red suit, laughing all the way, and arriving at a stable in Bethlehem to deliver the first of his gifts to a child in swaddling clothes. Have a very blessed Christmas. The log will return in a couple of weeks’ time. Meanwhile, here is Santa’s Christmas prayer:

On Christmas Eve the other night I saw the most amazing sight, for there beneath the Christmas tree was Santa kneeling on his knee. His countenance was different than that all-familiar, jolly grin; his head was bowed, and hand to breast, and slightly tucked into his vest. For there in a Nativity was Jesus and His family, and as I heard him start to pray, I listened close to what he’d say. “Lord, you know that you’re the reason, I take pleasure in this season. I don’t want to take your place, but just reflect your wondrous grace. I hope you’ll help them understand, I’m just an ordinary man, who found a way to do your will, by finding kids with needs to fill. But all those centuries ago, there was no way for me to know, that they would make so much of me, and all the gifts beneath the tree. They think I have some hidden power, granted at the midnight hour. But it is my love for you, inspiring all the things I do. So, let them give you all the glory, for you’re the One True Christmas Story.”

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 10th – 17th DECEMBER​I was kindly invited out for a pre-Christmas meal this week in a city centre restaurant. We arrived and got ourselves settled in a lovely booth. We selected our starters and main courses and ordered some wine. The starters came and looked delicious, but when we were about half way through the fire alarm went off. For a time, nobody moved, the whole restaurant just kept on eating, presuming it to be a false alarm that would be switched off at any minute. But then the staff came around and asked us to make our way outside into St. Vincent Street. So, off we went, very calmly, no rush or panic at all. The mood outside was jocular, although we were wondering if we were going to be able to continue our meal or not. Then three fire engines arrived and out piled a host of firemen, and into the restaurant through what I presumed was the service entrance. After about 20 minutes they re-emerged through the front door of the restaurant, and before too long we were invited back into the restaurant where we had fresh starters brought to the table and the offer of a free drink at the end of the meal. It was all very painless, although we never did find out what caused the alarm to go off.

The last time I had that kind of experience was on my way to Malawi to represent our Provincial at the ordination of a young Malawian Passionist, Patrick Mphepo. I flew to London Heathrow and was scheduled to transfer on to a flight to Nairobi, Kenya, where I would pick up a connection to Blantyre in Malawi, named after Blantyre in South Lanarkshire, birthplace of David Livingstone. Unfortunately, the flight from Heathrow to Nairobi was delayed and by the time we landed I had missed my flight to Blantyre. There was no flight then until the next morning which meant we had to go through customs and security to be put up in a hotel near the airport for the night. On the minibus taking us to the hotel I got talking to a lovely family, the mother of which just happened to be the daughter of the former Celtic player, Ian Young, whom I saw playing many times in the early 1960’s.

We had a big chunk of the day still to kill, so I joined the family on a trip to the Giraffe Centre, created by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, where the children, and adults, delighted in ascending high platforms and have the gentle giraffes come and eat of our hands; and then on to the Karen Blixen Museum at the place named after her. She was the author of the book Out of Africa, her own autobiography, later made into a film starring Meryl Streep. We returned to the hotel and had a meal together, and then to bed as we had a very early start next morning and would have to go through all the security procedures again. Unfortunately, at 2 o’clock in the morning, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the hotel. After about an hour we were allowed back in again but sleep proved elusive as I was afraid of oversleeping and missing the flight again. This proved wise as the alarm call I had booked at the hotel never came. Eventually I got to Blantyre and went straight to the cathedral. The Mass had already started so I decided just to sit quietly in the congregation and greet the young newly ordained Passionist afterwards. At least I would be able to concelebrate his first mass at his home village the next day. However, the ordaining bishop spotted me and called me forward to sit on the sanctuary with the rest of the priests, which I had to do in secular clothing, feeling rather uncomfortable. A feast followed and later that night I slept like a log. The next day I was collected and taken to the village where Fr. Patrick’s first Mass was being held. This time I was able to vest and concelebrate properly, along with Fr. Terence, whom many will remember from St. Mungo’s. Fr. Terence had travelled down with some students from Zambia, where he was staying at the time. So, all in all, despite missed flights and fire alarms, I enjoyed the trip immensely, and I have great memories of the days that followed, and of the beautiful country and people of Malawi.I suppose we could look at the Season of Advent as a kind of alarm call. Certainly, it’s a wake-up call, and a timely warning to get our lives in order so as to be ready, in each and every moment, to meet Christ face to face, when He comes again. Alarms go off for a reason, and it’s best to heed them.

Here are a few Advent thoughts from Pope St. John Paul ll.“It is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously”.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 3rd – 10th DECEMBER​I worked in the Olivetti factory in Queenslie from 1970-1975, at which time I left to join the Passionists. I was a cost accountant and I worked with a great group of people in the office, including our boss who, as an accountant and as a human being was top class. I had only been there a few months when myself and this boss had to go into town for some meeting or other, my memory of where it was and what it was about is a bit vague. What I remember clearly is the journey back when we went to Queen Street Station to catch a train. We were cutting it fine and at the end had to run along the platform as the train was getting ready to pull out. As we ran, I was aware of my boss dropping something which then seemed to bounce back up off the platform and straight into his hand without him breaking stride. When we leaped onto the train and took seats opposite each other, trying to catch our breath, I looked up and saw him inserting his glass eye back into its socket. Until that moment I hadn’t realized that he wore a glass eye, and I understood then what he had dropped and caught on the platform. Ever since it has given me a new understanding of the phrase “catching your eye”.

Thinking about “catching your eye”, when I was living in Dublin, one of my rituals whenever I returned home was to go for a walk around the west end where I was born and grew up, and also to saunter down Clydeside to the docks where my father had worked as a time keeper for the Anchor Line shipping company. The west end of Glasgow remains one of my favourite places. Just before I left St. Mungo’s in 1986 I gave a solo mission in St. Simon’s, Partick, the parish where I had served on the altar for years as a child, and just about everyone who came to the mission regaled me with stories and memories that I treasure to this day.

At one of the mission sessions a man caught my eye and seemed to observe me suspiciously throughout. He approached me afterwards and interrogated me; then, having firmlyestablished my lineage and making a comment or two on my preaching; he proceeded to ask about my mother, then retired, my older brother Hugh, who at that time was writing for The Scotsman, and finally about my younger brother Patrick, who was working for NationalSavings. He then held my eye for a bit longer, before saying, “Aye, Ah kent yir faither”.

Now, as we all know in Scotland, when someone tells you he kent yir faither, you know you are being advised, in no uncertain terms, not to get above your station, not to form any highopinions about yourself, and not to forget the humble roots you came from. It’s a national trait to have a certain ambivalence towards anyone who does reasonably well for themselves. On the one hand you might feel quite proud of the local boy or girl who did well, but on the other hand you have to be suspicious of them until you satisfy yourself they’ve remained humble and ordinary. The only reply I could think of to make to my interrogator, on behalf of myself and my brothers, was “Aye, Ah know ye did”. I hope that satisfied him.

One of the ways I like to think about God is that God is always trying to catch my eye. God is in all things if only I would notice. I think of Moses on the hillside noticing the burning bush, and when he approaches it he takes off his sandals because he realises that he is standing on Holy Ground, that he is in the presence of the living God. How often am I standing on Holy Ground without even realising? I think too of that wonderful description of prayer as “looking at God, looking at me, lovingly” God catching my eye, me catching God’s eye, in a gaze of love. How often in the Gospels does Jesus open eyes that we might see? And, of course, our God is the God who guards us as the pupil of his eye. In the words of an old hymn:

O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There’s light for a look at the Saviour, and life more abundant and free! Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace

In this month of November, as well as remembering my deceased loved ones, I found myself also remembering the death of a much-loved fictional character. Over the years I was a huge fan of the television series Inspector Morse. I would never miss an episode and I can remember, during the years 1996-2000, when I was parish priest in Prestonpans, that I enjoyed nothing better than staying home on a Wednesday night, making a big mug of tea and a sandwich, and settling down from 8-10 p.m. to watch Inspector Morse on ITV, watching out for the cameo appearances of the author of the books, Colin Dexter, who, like Alfred Hitchcock, liked to put in a brief personal appearance in each episode. I liked everything about the series - the stories, the setting, the pace, the music, and the characters. Also, the acting was wonderful.

Just to show how sad I am, I once traveled to Oxford and spent a week, as part of my summer holiday, visiting some of the haunts connected with the series. I had a pint of real ale, Morse’s favourite tipple, in the Turf Bar; the Eagle and Child, and the Bear Inn – not all on one day of course! I perused the world-famous Blackwell’s Book Store on Broad Street. I visited the Asmolean Museum, the Sheldonian Theatre, the Bodelian Library, and the Oxford Union. I walked and relaxed in the Botanic Gardens, and at that stage I could have told you which episodes each of these places featured in. “Get a life!” I hear you say, but I had a really enjoyable time.

I even remember the date Morse died. On Wednesday 15th November, 2000, having just revealed that his first name, a well-kept secret to the end, was in fact Endeavour, we saw Morse collapse outside the Oxford University Church, while inside they were singing Faures Requiem. What made it even sadder was that he didn’t have his browbeaten but loyal sidekick, Sergeant Lewis, with him. “Get Lewis for me”, he said, as he was carried into the ambulance. But Lewis never got there in time, Morse never got to say what he wanted to say, and, in the end, he had to call Chief Superintendent Strange over and simply say, “Thank Lewis for me” - and that was that, those were his last words.

There have been a couple of spin-off series that I have enjoyed as well- Lewis and Endeavour – but they couldn’t quite live up to the original. The actor who played Morse so wonderfully, John Thaw, died only 15 months or so after his on-screen death, aged just 60.

I like being able to connect with the actual settings for books I read, or television series I watch, and of course that applies even more so to the settings for the Gospels. I have only ever made one trip to the Holy Land but it will remain always with me as a sacred and special memory. To visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; to walk around Nazareth; to dip my feet in the River Jordan near to where Jesus was Baptized; to go out into the desert where Jesus was tempted; to enjoy a glass of wine in Cana; to go out in a boat on the Lake of Genessaret; to visit the ruins of Simon Peter’s house at Capernaum; to celebrate Mass on the Hill of the Beatitudes; to go up Mount Tabor, the setting for the Transfiguration; to look over Jerusalem from the place where Jesus wept; to enter the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Bethany; to be in the room where the Last Supper was celebrated and the Eucharist instituted; to pray in the garden of Olives; to go down into the dungeon where Jesus was kept overnight by Caiphus; to walk the Via Dolorosa; to stand on the site of Calvary; to kneel in the Holy Sepulcher; and to go up the hill from where Jesus’ Ascended into heaven, hearing an echo of Jesus’ last words before He returned to the Father, and to feel a part of His final commission to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth. Oxford was good – but the Holy land was incomparable, and no matter how tenuous the exact authenticity of some of these sites may be, they still brought the Gospel story alive, and I truly felt I was walking in the footsteps of the Lord.

You all know this poem about walking in the footsteps of the Lord:

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, “You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?” The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you”

A few years ago, while I was still based at Mount Argus in Dublin, I was in the middle of a meeting with our accountant when he suddenly took ill with an angina attack, and we had to phone an ambulance. The ambulance came quickly and it was agreed that I would follow behind the ambulance to St. James’s Hospital. He gave me his car keys and asked me to get his coat and bring it with me, and also to phone his son and let him know. I went to my room, phoned his son, and came down to where his car was parked. It was a fancier car than anything I had ever known, and when I pushed a button on his key fob, expecting it to unlock the car doors, it put the lights on inside the car instead, and the doors remained locked. With some uncertainty I used the key, but as soon as I opened the driver’s door the alarm started to go off. I grabbed his coat from the back seat and closed the door again, but still the alarm continued and grew even louder. Then all the lights began to flash as well. I stood there looking at it, wondering what to do next. Passers-by looked at me suspiciously and I began to feel irrationally guilty, even more so when a police car came along. Thankfully it was the police who helped me to switch the alarm off and get on my way.

I was reminded of this because of another car incident we had this past week. Last Monday, around 2.30 p.m., someone phoned the office to tell me that a car had parked across the gates into our yard at St. Mungo’s so that no one could either get in or get out. When I went down to see what was happening I found three members of staff from the St. Mungo’s Old Folks Centre for Wellbeing and one member of staff from AGAP (Archdiocese of Glasgow Arts Project) wondering how they were going to get home, as their cars were parked in the yard, and indeed two of them were wondering how they were going to collect their children from school. I was also wondering how I was going to get out myself, as I had an appointment to get to later in the afternoon. We had no choice but to phone the police and the traffic wardens who attend the local parking meters.

The traffic warden came first and took photos of the car, the “Keep Clear” signs; the “No Loading at any Time” sign, and the double yellow lines, then slapped a ticket on the car. He then phoned for a tow truck, only to inform us that none would be available that day, so we would have to wait for the driver to come back – God knows when. He left, and a little while later the police came. They said they would have a tow truck within half an hour. During that time Father Gareth arrived and we swapped cars so I could get to my appointment. Later on, I discovered, the tow truck came as promised and took the car off to the pound.

The final episode was some hours later, when Father Gareth set out for home at 8.45 p.m., having returned from Youth 2000 in St. Andrew’s Cathedral. As he drove out of the gates a woman jumped in front of the car so that he had no choice but to slam on the brakes, even though the gate was closing behind him and ended up scratching the back of the car. She demanded to know where the car was that had been parked there. When Father Gareth informed her that she had parked illegally and that the police had towed it away, her only concern seemed to be how much it would cost to get it back; there was certainly no remorse, and no apology for any trouble she had caused by what could only be described as a very selfish and irresponsible act, but before any of that could be said to her, she walked away.​The Gospel that day (Luke 18:35-43) showed Jesus healing a man who was blind. Perhaps that lady needed to be healed of her blindness; of her inability to see the selfishness of her actions. “What do you want me to do for you”, said Jesus? “Lord, that I may see”. We might also want to reflect on Matthew 7:12, the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you”. Why not take a moment some time to pray, and ask the Holy Spirit how you might exercise this teaching in your own life, and where might it be lacking?

On 8th November Brother Antony and myself travelled over to our Passionist Retreat House in Crossgar, County Down, to take part in a reflection day for our Passionist Province. We had taken advantage of a 20% discount on Stena Line to get priority boarding on the Cairnryan to Belfast Ferry, and a place in the Stena Plus Lounge where there would be comfy seats, newspapers and nibbles, and, we presumed, a little more peace and quiet than throughout the rest of the boat. Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out to be the case.

It was the day of the first leg World Cup Qualifier between Northern Ireland and Switzerland, and in the Stena Plus Lounge there was a businessman of some kind, perhaps a sales rep, who spent the whole sailing on his mobile phone talking very loudly to clients to whom he had promised hospitality tickets for the match at Windsor Park. The gist of his call to his clients was that there was good news and bad news, and did they want the good news or the bad news first. It seemed that they all went for the good news first, because this call was repeated many times, and often more than once to the same client as the mobile phone reception on the ferry kept cutting out, and he would have to redial and start the whole conversation all over again.

The good news was that he had managed to acquire tickets for them. The bad news was that they weren’t hospitality tickets, they were just ordinary tickets, and they weren’t even the best ordinary tickets as they were way up in a corner at the top of one of the stands, although he wanted to assure them that the view would be okay. They were also e-tickets and so when he got to his office he could either email them to his clients or, if they preferred, they could come and collect them. He would be at the office until 5 o’clock.

By the time we got to Belfast we, and everyone else in the lounge, knew his name, his business, his mobile phone number, and the names of his clients, and we hadn’t had a minute’s peace and quiet the whole journey. I’m sure many people have had the same experience on planes, boats and trains, and perhaps Brother Antony and myself are not alone in finding it quite frustrating and annoying.

The Province Day went well. It’s always good to meet up with fellow Passionists from around the province, to catch up on all the news, to find out how everyone is doing, to have good conversations about how we feel things are going in each of the communities, and how the plans we agreed at the last Provincial Chapter are taking shape, and then to feed that back to the men back home who had to hold the fort, or who weren’t able to go to the gathering for age, health or other reasons.

Our return journey was thankfully more relaxing, although there was a strong wind and heavy waves that caused the ferry to rise and fall quite in the sea quite dramatically. At one point my glass of apple juice went skimming across the table, and there was a poor lady who, along with her friends, had been taking serious advantage of the bottles of wine freely available in the lounge to drink to her heart’s content, but who then, with the violent and stomach churning motion of the boat, had to recycle her Sauvignon Blanc into a brown paper bag. Not a pretty sight.Brother Antony will be repeating the journey this weekend as he is bringing two Scots lads over to Crossgar for a Vocations Retreat, where they will join other lads from Ireland, north and south, who would like to find out a bit more about the Passionists, and about our way of life and ministry. These weekends are held a few times a year by way of helping young men on their faith journey, and in the discernment of how Christ may be calling them in their lives and in their own personal vocation. Just now and again it may happen, by the grace of God, that some of them feel Christ is calling them to become Passionists themselves. Here is our Prayer for Passionist Vocations:

Jesus, you gave your life on the Cross so that we could share in God’s own life and know his love for us.May the love that flows from the Cross transform our hearts, so that we can bring your love and compassion to those whose lives we touch, especially those who are suffering.Give the light of your Holy Spirit to those young people who have received the grace of a Passionist vocation. Inspire them to give their lives as Passionist priests, brothers or sisters, keeping the Memory of your Passion alive in their own hearts and in the hearts of others.May Mary, who stood by the Cross, be their example, and may Saint Paul of the Cross be their guide. Amen.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 5th – 12th NOVEMBERIt has been said by Scripture Scholars that in St. Luke’s Gospel Jesus always seems to be going to a meal, at a meal, coming back from a meal, or telling stories about meals, and that has certainly been true this past week when the weekday Gospels for just about every day were about meals. Of course, in the Gospels meals are to do with much more than just food, they are about fellowship, friendship, forgiveness, reconciliation, conversion and love.

I was thinking about the meals I’ve shared in myself, just during this past week. Last Saturday I collected my younger brother and we went to a surprise party being thrown for our sister-in-law’s 70th birthday; this despite the fact that for the past 6 months she has been telling her husband, our Hugh, and all her family that she didn’t want any kind of party at all, and that especially she didn’t want a surprise party. The celebration was being held in my niece’s house, and alongside all the adults there were her six grandchildren and all her grand-nieces and grand-nephews. There were kids running around everywhere and the noise was deafening, but, somehow, they were quietened down for Janet’s arrival, only to reach new decibels when she walked in the door. Janet took it in her stride and, if she was annoyed, she didn’t show it. We then went on to enjoy some beautiful food and, when we could hear ourselves over the kids, very enjoyable conversation; catching-up, telling stories, sharing memories, strengthening family ties, and generally having a good time.

On Sunday I thought I wouldn’t eat very much at all, as I was still feeling a bit stuffed from the night before. After celebrating the 12 o’clock Mass I went back to Bishopbriggs for a bit of a rest before coming back in again for the evening Mass. In the course of the afternoon I caught some very evocative aromas coming from the kitchen as Brother Antony was putting together a lovely stew, and Father Gareth was producing his signature dish, chocolate truffles – most of which he eats himself. So, when we came back from Mass later on we sat down and enjoyed more good food, conversation and laughter, winding down after a busy day, and strengthening our Passionist community bonds.

On Tuesday Father Gareth, Brother Antony and myself, took up an invitation from one of their former lecturers at Heythrop College in London, who is now the new parish priest at St. Aloysius, Father Michael Holman. We walked into town and joined Father Michael and the Jesuit community for lunch, along with the two Spiritans from St. Columba’s, Father Ambrose and Father Dominic; and Father Paul Gargaro from St. Patrick’s in Anderston. Together we are meant to form a cluster of parishes in the Archdiocese. Once again we enjoyed good food and conversation, and explored some ways that we could support each other in the cluster, and also reach out to others, especially to the young people in our parishes, as we have been trying to do here in St. Mungo’s with our Passionist Young Team, and with Brother Antony’s developing chaplaincy ministry in the City of Glasgow College; Strathclyde University and Caledonian University. Once again, around the table, we strengthened ties and created new friendships in the Lord.

Three meals in four days, all very different, but, as with the meals in the Gospel, they were to do with much more than just food, and without a doubt, Christ was the unseen guest at the table on each occasion. Every table can be an altar. Every meal can be a supper at Emmaus.

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity - all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. ​Acts of the Apostles 2:26-27

On the Feast of All Saints I was recalling my very first day as a postulant with the Passionists. I was 24 years of age, and it was October 4th 1975, the feast of my name saint, Francis of Assisi, when myself and another Glasgow lad left from the Retreat House the Passionists then had at Coodham in Ayrshire. We were driven by a member of the community to Ardrossan, and then sailed on a boat called The Lion to Belfast. All the belongings we were asked to bring easily fitted into the boot of the car. These included wellies and dungarees as we were told we would be doing a fair amount of manual work in the monastery and in the grounds. Our destination was The Graan in Enniskillen, the place where, until recent years, every Passionist from Ireland or Scotland began their journey of formation. I remember that the route from Belfast to Enniskillen took us through the three Tyrone villages of Augher, Clogher and Fivemiletown, until we eventually drove up the avenue to this very imposing monastery three miles outside of the town of Enniskillen where we were greeted, a bit sternly I thought, by our Postulant Director, and introduced to our four classmates, one from County Clare; two from Belfast, and the other from Nigeria.

After a cold supper and an introductory lecture to lay down the rules, I was shown to my room, which in monastic terms is called a cell. My cell comprised of an ancient single bed with a lumpy mattress; a single wardrobe with two wire hangers, a small desk, a rickety chair, a small rug on bare wooden floorboards, and a ceiling light without a shade. I immediately wondered what, in God’s name, I was doing there. After unpacking, I went along to the wash hall to brush my teeth, and on the way back I became aware of something whizzing past my head. It turned out to be a bat, and it wasn’t even Halloween yet.

The only other item in the room was a huge portrait in an old gilt frame of someone that turned out be St. Gemma Galgani, who lived in Lucca in Italy from 1878-1903, and who, even though because of poor health she never actually joined the Passionists, is numbered among the Passionist saints. She was a very pretty looking girl and I looked at her and said; “Well Gemma, it’s not much of a room, but if I’m going to share it with you for the next year or so, I’d better find out who you are”. I then tiptoed along to the monastery library and found a book on her life, written by her spiritual director, the Passionist, Father Germanus.

Still a bit overawed by my surroundings, and with so many thoughts and questions going around in my head, I realised that I wouldn’t sleep a wink that night, and so I spent the whole night reading Gemma’s story. By morning time, she had become one of my favourite saints, and ever since she has been one of my constant companions and soul friends on the rocky road of faith. I have visited her shrine at Lucca on three occasions, as well as her shrine at Madrid where her heart is kept in a reliquary; I carry her picture constantly in my breviary, and I even now have a niece called Gemma. Canonised in 1940, St. Gemma is now very much revered as a true mystic, and is called the Daughter of Passion, because of her profound imitation of the Passion of Christ, including being one of those saints who received the stigmata. Here are a few thoughts from Gemma, the mystic of the Passion, to leave you with:

“Why did you suffer for me, dear Jesus? For love! The nails…the crown…the cross…all for the love of me! For You I sacrifice everything willingly. I offer You my body with all of its weakness, and my soul with all of its love.” “See, oh Jesus, even at night, those hours, those hours! I sleep, but Jesus, my heart does not sleep. It watches with Thee at all hours.”“Can You see that as soon as the day breaks I think of You? As evening comes, I am near You. I am near You at every moment. I love You, Jesus…”

This week I have been preparing some materials for the month of November, our special time of remembering our loved ones who have died, and it prompted a particular memory. For 10 years I was the secretary to the North European Conference of the Passionists. We have since done some restructuring, but the Passionist Provinces in the Conference at that time were Ireland/Scotland; England/Wales; Netherlands; Belgium; Germany; France and Poland. There was an annual meeting of the leaders of the provinces that usually lasted 3 or 4 days. The meetings moved around the various locations and, especially with the language differences, the meetings were quite intense. Because of that, by way of a break, half a day was always set aside for some cultural experience arranged by the host province.

Some of the experiences that I especially remember were, for example, when we held the meeting in Munich and had an afternoon at the Oktoberfest (Munich Beer Festival) This was around the time they introduced the “Quiet Oktoberfest” which, up until 6pm at least, maintained the beer tents family and elderly friendly, and now Passionist friendly, with the orchestras in the tents playing only quiet brass music and traditional folk tunes, so we weren’t going too wild. From another meeting held in Bordeaux we visited a local vineyard. After the tour we were seated around a garden and given two small glasses of wine, one of them a very expensive wine, and the other a very modestly priced wine. We weren’t told which was which and we were asked to discuss which of them we preferred. To a man we preferred the cheap wine, so perhaps our taste buds were more suited to German beer.

Lest you think all our cultural experiences were alcohol related, in Belgium we went to Leuven to visit the shrine of the leper priest, Father Damien, who was voted the greatest ever Belgian in a poll conducted by the Flemish Public Broadcasting Service for his work as the resident priest in a leper colony on Molokai Island, eventually submitting to the same, then incurable disease. At a meeting in the Netherlands we visited the Shrine of Father Charles of Mount Argus at Munstergeleen, the place of his birth, and then on to Maastricht, where the Treaty on European Union was signed in 1992. At a meeting in Minsteracres, a Passionist Retreat Centre in Northumberland, we visited Hadrian’s Wall, built by Roman Britain to keep the Scots out. I was happy to be living proof that it didn’t work.

But the foremost memory that was prompted this week was when we had a meeting in Warsaw which took place at the end of October, beginning of November. On All Saints' Day the cemeteries and graveyards in Poland are decorated with candles, flowers and wreaths throughout the day, and the candles are left to burn through the night. And so, for our cultural experience, the Polish Passionists provided us with votive lamps and brought us to Powazki cemetery, the primary cemetery in Warsaw, where we placed the lamps on the graves of deceased Passionists. It was dark by this time and the effect of all these lamps burning throughout this huge cemetery was incredibly solemn and beautiful. Afterwards, in the church of St. Charles Borromeo, within the cemetery, we attended a concert of sombre music to fit the occasion. It was a cultural experience with a difference, but one I will never forget.

In the old Catholic ritual this commendation was said over a dying person by the priest:

"Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you. Go forth, faithful Christian. May you live in peace this day, may your home be with God, with Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, with Saint Joseph, and all the angels and saints. Amen"May our deceased loved ones rest in peace.

In the middle of November my sports reporter brother will help us to raise funds by hosting a Super Scoreboard night here in St. Mungo’s. At the moment we are getting tickets printed in the hope that we can fill the hall and have a very enjoyable night. I am hopeless at that side of things and find it quite stressful, so I am always very grateful for those volunteers who step forward and offer their help.

My most stressful experience of trying to sell tickets was 10 years ago in Dublin when we were preparing for the canonization of Father Charles of Mount Argus. I had the notion of commissioning a new hymn for the occasion and I decided to approach Liam Lawton, a priest based in Carlow who was the most prominent writer of liturgical music in Ireland at the time, and probably still is. I liked his music very much and we sang a fair amount of it in our Mount Argus Folk Group, so who better to ask!

I contacted Liam and we arranged to meet for a coffee in the Red Cow Hotel in Dublin which was easy for him to get to from Carlow, and for me from Mount Argus. As an aside, the Red Cow was also known as the Mad Cow because, at the time, it was approached via a roundabout where the traffic was invariably chaotic and an absolute nightmare to try and get on and get off in one piece. However, we both negotiated it safely and sat down at table.

He wanted to know all about Father Charles, about his ministry of healing, hope and reconciliation, and also, about what our plans were leading up to the celebrations. At the end of the conversation Liam had agreed to write the song and also to put on a concert of Sacred Music in the church before the canonization, during which he would introduce the song for the first time. And so it was, in the midst of all the other hectic preparations for the celebrations, both in Rome and in Dublin, I had to try and promote this concert and sell 900 tickets to fill the church. Thankfully, a great team of volunteers helped me to do just that.

The hymn, “Come to Me”, was beautiful. He finished it just in time for the concert and sang it at the end, accompanying himself on piano. I remember feeling very moved by it. We had a limited number of CD’s made where the hymn was coupled with another of his compositions, “Sing of a Lady”, with the refrain – Ave Maria, hope of all our days – which we chose because of Father Charles’s great devotion to Mary as the Mother of Hope. A few years later Liam put the hymn to Saint Charles on his beautiful album, “Healing Song”.

I recently had another reminder of that fateful year when I was at a celebration with a couple whom I have been friendly with for almost 50 years, ever since I met them at our Passionist Retreat House at Coodham in the late 1960’s. Their first grandchild was born in 2007 and, without knowing anything about the canonization, they had decided to come over for a family trip to Dublin and have me baptize their new grandchild in Mount Argus. Until they arrived I hadn’t known that the child was to be called Charlie, and of course Father Charles’s nickname in the community was “Poor Old Charlie”, so when they saw all these banners in the church proclaiming a new saint for Ireland whose name was Charlie they were delighted and we had a great laugh about it. I hadn’t seen much of Charlie since but when I met him last week, now a fine strapping lad at 10 years of age, it brought it all back to me.

Here is the refrain of that beautiful hymn to Saint Charles:Come to me with all your burdens, come and place your heart in mine,Come and tell me all your worries, hope in you will never dieFor I am full of Compassion, do not be afraidCome to me with all your burdens, I will never walk away.

I had an unusual call last week from a man who wanted to come and take some photos outside of the church. Once I had satisfied myself of his good intentions I discovered that this man’s passion was journeying to film locations and trying to match stills from the film with how the location looked now.

He wanted to come to St. Mungo’s because the church had been used many years back in a film called Heavenly Pursuits. When I relayed this to Father Gareth he got very excited, because he loves his films, and he immediately went on to the internet to find this film. It was a light-hearted comedy released in 1986, starring Helen Mirren; Tom Conti and David Hayman, and it tells the story of a teacher at a Catholic school whose students are searching for two miracles that would help promote the late (and fictional) Edith Semple to sainthood.

What surprised me was that, if the film was released in 1986, then I must have been stationed in St. Mungo’s at the time, as I was part of the community here from 1983-1986, but I have no recollection of it at all. Of course, I was away a lot then, doing vocations work, and giving missions and retreats, so I can only assume that the filming was done during one of those pastoral journeys. But it pains me to think that, having become a big fan of Helen Mirren later on in life, especially when she was in Prime Suspect, that she was here at St. Mungo’s and I never got the chance to meet her. I’m sure if the late Fr. Anthony Behan had been here he would have remembered it well. He was also a member of the community at the time, and a great film buff, and no doubt he made a deep impression on Helen Mirren with his charms.I have, however, been in other Passionist Retreats when some kind of filming was taking place, and I got the chance to meet a few famous film stars. When I was doing my diaconate year in Rome from 1982-83, I met Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer when they filmed some scenes from The Scarlet and the Black in the monastery garden of Saints John and Paul where I was living at the time. This was a TV movie which told the story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a real life Irish-born Catholic priest who, while in Rome, saved thousands of Jews, and helped escaped Allied Prisoners of War, during World War II.

Mount Argus in Dublin has been used a number of times for films and TV dramas. I was there for meetings one time in the late 1990’s when they were filming a TV drama called The Ambassador, and I met the lead star, Pauline Collins, whom I had loved when she was in the film Shirley Valentine a few years before. She was playing the new British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland and some of the big meeting rooms in Mount Argus were being used for scenes supposedly taking place at the British Embassy in Ballsbridge.

More recently there was an Irish TV soap opera called Red Rock, set in the fictional seaside town of Red Rock in County Dublin. The locations manager came along and asked if he could use the entrance in and out of the new monastery at Mount Argus as the funeral parlour in the series. I might have been offended by that, but I had just been on holiday to Westport, and it turned out the locations manager’s father was the head of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Westport, so I felt I could trust him, and I gave the necessary permission. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out, as we weren’t able to shut down the monastery for the length of time they needed for filming, but they did do some other filming in and around the grounds for various scenes – there were no big stars for me to meet though.​Here is a quote from the above-mentioned Pauline Collins about goodness and evil in films:“I think goodness is very powerful, but evil is often made more attractive in films. It’s a challenge to make goodness appealing. I was brought up a Catholic, so I have to believe in the goodness of human beings. I think we’re not so bad after all”

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 1st – 8th OCTOBER​Father Gareth and myself have just passed the year mark since we both came to St. Mungo’s last October. Back then Father Gareth arrived on the 4th and held the fort until I arrived on the 6th; and he had to do the same again this year as I had to travel to Belfast for a series of meetings around finances and formation. When these meetings were first arranged I wasn’t under any particular pressure coming back, but I had agreed to do a wedding in St. Andrew’s cathedral in November for a Ugandan couple which, because of visa problems, was brought forward to October 6th. When I went to organise travel the only way I could be at the meetings and be back for the wedding, which was at the unusual time of 11 a.m., was to bring the car and return on the 23.30 Stena Line sailing from Belfast to Cairnryan. That meant I would be getting back to the house at around 4 a.m. and arriving to the wedding with very little sleep. Added to that, it was a stormy week, and the bride and groom, a truly lovely couple, were concerned that the sailing would be cancelled and that they’d be left stranded at the altar without a priest, although I knew it would take a lot for one of those big boats not to be able to sail, and that they had stabilisers to manage on the rough seas.

As it turned out, the meetings finished a little earlier than planned and I was able to transfer to an earlier sailing at 19.30, which would mean getting home around midnight, a much better option. It was better still, that once the boat set sail, I discovered they were showing both the Northern Ireland v Germany, and the Scotland v Slovakia World Cup qualifying matches in different parts of the ship. I got myself a good seat in the Scottish section and passed the journey watching a really exciting match. When Scotland’s winning goal went in with just minutes to go we were all out of our seats with hugs and high-fives, perfect strangers becoming each other’s best friends – even if just for a while. There was a bit of a panic when, with 3 minutes of injury time still to play, the ship reached port and the television was switched off. Cries of dismay persuaded the crew to put the television on again so that we could be sure we had held out to the end, which of course we did, and the drive back to Bishopbriggs was pleasantly spent listening to post-match analysis on the radio.

The wedding itself was a delight. There were only about 15 people there, mostly from Uganda, but also from Ghana and Tanzania. In 35 years of celebrating weddings it was the first time that I had kept the bride waiting instead of the other way around, as she had arrived 15 minutes early while we were still setting up the altar in the cathedral. They were people of real faith and their small group of friends entered fully into the joy of the occasion. There was no big reception, but I had agreed a while back to have lunch with them after the Nuptial Mass, and I had to smile to myself when I discovered that we were going to the World Buffet in Renfield Street, because this is Father Gareth’s favourite restaurant, although I hadn’t realised he had his very own waitress as well, because no sooner had I entered the restaurant than I was very warmly greeted by one of the Passionist Young Team (PYT), the group that Father Gareth gathers on a Wednesday night. Later on, another young man who had been to the PYT came over to greet me as well.

I don’t think the World Buffet had ever held a wedding reception before and they were obviously thrilled to see the bride and groom arrive and, even though the bride had made a quick change out of her wedding dress, she still looked quite stunning, while the groom and guests were all still in their wedding outfits, which for some meant traditional costumes. The World Buffet offers food from all corners of the world but, when I got up to get my main course, the first PYT member pointed to the Macaroni and Cheese and told me that Father Gareth usually just fills his plate with that and sits quite happily before heading off again.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 24th SEPTEMBER – 1st OCTOBERMy favourite Ad on television at the moment is the one where customers come into various cafes, just looking for a simple cup of coffee, but end up totally bemused at the vast array of options on offer, the bizarre ways in which they are presented, and of course, what they cost.The Ad reminds me of a few years back, when I came over from Ireland to Scotland for a meeting. I was returning to Ireland the following afternoon from Prestwick Airport, along with two Passionist colleagues. We had planned to grab a bit of lunch at the airport before boarding the plane, which seemed straight forward enough, but I ended up bemused by the bewildering array of choices I was offered at the airport’s self-service restaurant, which was called The Village Grill.

As I looked at the menu above the counter I took a fancy to the sausage and mash, something nice and simple – or so I thought! “Butter mash, or cheese and chive mash?” I was asked. For a few seconds I froze but then “Butter”, says I. “What kind of sausages?” was the next question. “What kind are there?” I replied. “Apple and cider; vegetarian and herb, venison or pork” were tantalisingly placed before me. Ever the traditionalist, I opted for pork – they looked bigger and fatter anyway. “Would you like mushy peas or beans?” That was an easy one. “Beans”, says I. “Would you like gravy?” she asked. “Just a little,” I replied. “Traditional gravy or onion gravy?” she offered. Once again, I went traditional.

By this time I was wishing I had ordered fish and chips, but there are so many fish in the sea that, just in case she decided to go through them all, I might have been there a lot longer. Eventually I got my sausage and mash, and a bottle of Irn Bru to wash it down, and joined my colleagues who by this stage were nearly finished their lunch. We live in an age of choice, sometimes too much choice for our own good, and we need great wisdom to be able to make the right choices.The Gospel this Sunday is also about choices. The father in Jesus’ story invites his sons to go and work in the vineyard. Initially it would seem there are only two choices – yes or no; but even those get complicated as the son who says yes turns out to mean no, and the son who says no turns out to mean yes. In the Book of Deuteronomy God sets before His people life and death and says “Choose life”. That would seem like a no-brainer, except that choosing life means loving and serving God, following His ways, and living by his commands, which isn’t always so easy.

Good choices require good discernment. Discernment is a decision-making process that honours the place of God's will in our lives. It is an interior search that seeks to align our own will with the will of God, in order to learn what God is calling us to. Every choice we make, no matter how small, is an opportunity to align ourselves with God's will.

Pope Francis has this to say about his own choices:My choices, including those related to the day to day aspects of life, like my use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people, and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 17th – 24th SEPTEMBERLast Saturday we bade farewell to Father Pat Rogers CP, one of the preachers for our Novena to Our Lady of Sorrows. We enjoyed having him at the house in Bishopbriggs and we hope that people enjoyed him during the Novena. I’m sure Father Pat wouldn’t mind me saying that he falls into the realm of those we might describe as eccentric genius. There is no doubting his extraordinary intellect but he can also be a little unpredictable at times. In the early part of my diaconate year in Rome, back in 1982-83, Father Pat was there as a simultaneous translator for the Passionist General Chapter. He asked me if I would like to join him for an early morning run before proceedings began and I said yes. So, the next morning, we togged out and jogged down the hill from the Passionist Monastery of Saints John and Paul towards the Coliseum. We circled the perimeter of the Coliseum and then I realised that Father Pat was heading towards the Roman Forum, a tourist attraction which contains the ruins of several important, ancient government buildings. A guard stepped out and blocked his path, hand held out for the admission fee. Neither of us had any money in our jogging gear and so Father Pat tried to convince him in his excellent Italian that we were only going to run through and not look at anything. The guard was unimpressed and turfed us out.

We had a bit more success when he took me along and bluffed his way into a press conference for the man for whom Maximilian Kolbe gave up his life in Auschwitz. This was the night before Maximilian Kolbe was due to be canonised. When we entered the small press room Father Pat put down a tape recorder on the table while Italian, and other journalists, looked at him and wondered who he was. When his credentials were questioned he offered to translate from Polish into English, a service that wasn’t really required, which was just as well as, despite being multi-lingual, Polish wasn’t one of the languages that Father Pat spoke. The upshot was that we were allowed to stay for the interview but not record it. A third incident does not concern me but it is frequently recounted by one of our Passionist colleagues who was invited out for a drive with Father Pat. On the way back, Father Pat suggested a cup of tea and, when our colleague agreed, he found himself being brought to a blood donor’s centre to get the cuppa for free, or at least in exchange for a pint of blood. So, all in all, I think the time he was with us was enjoyable, but peacefully uneventful.

We did not have to say farewell to our second Novena preacher. Brother Antony Connelly CP now moves into our home in Bishopbriggs as the 5th member of our Passionist community. He had to wait until Father Pat departed to be able to take ownership of his room, and he has spent the last few days arranging the space as he wants it, moving in his possessions, and putting up shelves for his books, so that he can start to get settled in. He is also gently easing himself into a chaplaincy role in the local universities and colleges, something to which he is well suited, being a graduate of both Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. Like Father Pat, Brother Antony can also be described as an intellectual, but as to whether he is eccentric or not we will have to wait and see, but I don’t think he is. I have told him I am getting great sleep since he came because last thing at night I am reading his Undergraduate Dissertation from Heythrop College, which is entitled Christian Ethical, Anthropological and Soteriological Considerations of Transhumanism. I don’t even understand the title, but I have no doubt that it is very good. If intellect can be compared with reason, then, as also men of Passion, Father Pat and Brother Antony might appreciate this thought from Kahlil Gibran:

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul… For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 10th – 17th SEPTEMBERA few weeks ago, when we were preparing for a fundraising Quiz Night in St. Mungo’s to help towards the payment of a few big bills, a generous donor gave us the pledge of 2 tickets for the Celtic v Paris St. Germain game at Celtic Park to be used as a raffle prize. At the time, we thought this very generous offer was too good to just put into the raffle along with the boxes of chocolates, the cosmetics, and the bottles of wine and whisky, of which there were many. Indeed, during the raffle, I was lucky enough to win both a bottle of red wine and a bottle of whisky for which I, and the community, were duly grateful. Our newest member of the Passionist Community, Brother Antony, had three wins in a row and, so far as I remember, gave all his prizes away. Each time one of Brother Antony’s tickets was drawn out, Father Gareth let out a cry that it was all a fix, as he ended up winning nothing at all, despite the fact that there were loads of prizes to go around; although I have a funny feeling that Father Gareth never bought a ticket in the first place, so what could he expect?

With the donor’s permission, we decided to try something else with the Celtic tickets and so, once we had the tickets in hand on the Saturday before the game, I called my brother Hugh, the notorious football pundit on Radio Clyde. When I phoned he was out at an Indian restaurant near his house with his wife, the long-suffering Janet – he enjoys a Chicken Tikka Masala does our Hugh. He promised to call me back when he got home, which he duly did. I told him about the tickets and he said he would put it on Twitter and see if he got a response.Within minutes Hugh had received a generous offer from the son of the late, great, Tommy Burns which I was happy to accept. Tommy’s son lives in Florida and he was waiting for Hurricane Irma to arrive, but he wanted the tickets for other family members at home, and he also wanted to help out St. Mungo’s. One of the reasons I accepted so quickly was that Tommy was a frequent visitor to St. Mungo’s and, in fact, people remember that one time he was so wrapped up in his prayers that he ended up locked into the church. When Tommy’s daughter arrived on the Sunday to collect the tickets she was delighted to hear that story.

Hugh and Tommy were good friends and, back in 1989, they had co-authored Tommy’s autobiography: Twists and Turns – the Tommy Burns Story as told to Hugh Keevins. So, it seemed to me, there was a sense of providence that these tickets should go to Tommy Burns’ family. But also, in a gesture of good will, some others who had bid for tickets communicated to Hugh that in times past they had connections with Townhead and with St. Mungo’s and, even though they hadn’t been successful in their bids, wanted to know how they could help out St. Mungo’s anyway – so we will see where that goes, and thanks for the kind thoughts. It just goes to show what a special place St. Mungo’s is and the place it holds in people’s hearts, and of course Tommy was a special person too, may he rest in peace. (Pity about the score!)​In our church situation money is about stewardship, so here is a stewardship prayer to ponder:Stewardship is rooted in the understanding that we live in a God-centred creation. It begins with the realization that everything we are and everything we own is a gift, freely given by a God who loves us, and who calls us into relationship with Him. We have nothing – not even life itself – which is not a gift from God. The Lord has given each one of us gifts, graces, talents, abilities and resources – all of which are to be shared responsibly and wisely with others. Faithful stewardship is a way of life that demands involvement and care. It can be equated with holiness – and God calls us all to holiness. Amen.​

In his epic poem “The Great Hunger”, the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh talks about God being in the bits and pieces of every day, and I have no doubt that’s true. We don’t need to experience God in spectacular events, we just need to be attuned to God’s presence in the ordinariness of everyday life.

I was writing last week about my experience on retreat at Kinnoul in Perth. When I left Kinnoul, I went on to spend a week in North Berwick, and there were a few bits and pieces there where, even without being on retreat, God, I’m sure, was present in very ordinary events. The first was when I ascended North Berwick Law, an extinct volcano, many thousands of years’ old; taking the easier route that winds around the Law, rather than the quicker, but more difficult route, that demands a very steep climb. Even the easy route had me gasping for breath at the top, but the view, on a blessedly clear and sunny day, made it worth the while. I looked out over the Firth of Forth, with the Bass Rock, the Lamb, the Isle of May and Craiglieth in the distance, and God was present in his creation.

The next day, after a walk along the beach, I decided to go for lunch in the Lobster Shack, which is a very pleasant outdoor eatery down by the harbour. I put my order in for Scottish squid – eating lobster is too much like hard work – and I found a bench to sit at while my squid was being cooked. Suddenly I looked up and I could see someone at another table staring curiously at me. As I stared curiously back I realised it was someone whom I hadn’t seen for nearly 20 years. She was there with her husband and their son who had just returned home on holiday from America. They had decided to come to North Berwick for the day and took a notion to go to the Lobster Shack for lunch. I joined them at the table as they wrestled with a huge lobster that seemed intent on fighting back, and not giving up its meat too easily, and we had a great old laugh and chat, and a catch up about many things. The word for such an unexpected but happy encounter is serendipity, and God is always present in serendipity.

Off and on during the week I walked sections of the John Muir Way, John Muir being that extraordinary Scot who is revered in America as the founding father of national parks and conservationism and much more besides. He was born in Dunbar and, for the centenary of his death back in 2014, a walk from Helensburgh to Dunbar was created in his honour. The walk goes through the John Muir National Park in which is situated the Bridge to Nowhere. At low tide, it’s possible to walk over this bridge, crossing the Biel Waters and onto the sands at Belhaven Bay. But when the tide comes in, the bridge gets submerged and appears to be stranded in the middle of the sea, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. It comes as a bit of a surprise to see this, and God, of course, is the God of Surprises.

Today I have been looking through the many petitions that people have sent in for our Novena to Our Lady of Sorrows which is running from the 7th to 15th September. Reading these petitions is a poignant way of touching into people’s stories, and of being reminded that sufferings, sorrows and struggles are in the bits and pieces of every day as well. Heart rending as most of these petitions are, I have no doubt that God is in these bits and pieces too. Here is a beautiful prayer by Joyce Rupp, to the Mother of Sorrows at the foot of the cross.​Mary, you have been there before me, weary and worn out from the long vigil; saddened by the pain of your loved one, heartbroken over what you could not change. Your valiant stance beneath the cross tells me of your unceasing love. Long years of unfailing faith upheld you. Kind friends by your side sustained you. I too am standing with a loved one who hangs upon the cross of suffering. I too am powerless to help. Woman of Compassion; Mother of Sorrows, I draw inspiration from your journey. I too can move through the pain of my present situation. Your faith and courage lead me to my own.